Resources
1and1 Web Hosting & Domain Registration
I use 1and1.com to host my website. They are extremely reliable, very well priced (starting at $3.99/month) and have a variety of packages to choose from. Currently, when you sign up for their Home Package ($4.99/month), you don’t pay for your first year! Some of the extras that are included with their packages are:
- 1-5 free domain names
- $25-$100 vouchers for Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and CitySearch
- Blogs, Photo Galleries, Shopping Carts, Maling Lists, Site Building Tools, and more
- 24/7 toll-free phone support!
WordPress & Thesis
I use WordPress to power my blog, which you can download here. The Thesis theme from DIYThemes is not free, but is well worth the $87 as it offers the strongest SEO of any theme on the market and allows you to fine-tune each and every page of your site.
Blog Pinging with Ping-o-Matic
If you maintain an online blog, you might consider using a pinging service. Blog pinging is especially useful when you’ve just written a post or added new features to your website. Normally, it can take search engines such as Google or Yahoo several days or even weeks to index new content on your site. A “ping” however is an immediate notification that is sent to the search engines and blog directories to let them know that your site has been updated. Whenever you have written a new blog, simply visit Ping-o-Matic and enter the name and URL of your site and check off which individual websites you would like to notify of your changes.
A few blog pinging services I’ve used:
Photoshop Actions
Some of my favorite Adobe Photoshop actions include:
